Decanting of red wine has been a long tradition in the wine industry. In decanting, the wine is simply poured into another container, usually one of clear glass or crystal. Decanting is particularly important for most young red wines (between three to ten years old). These younger wines can be harsh or astringent if consumed directly after opening the bottle. Such wines have this harsh character because red wine has been maintained in a relatively oxygen-free environment during aging in a bottle. Over time, this environment results in a closed character for the beverages that is derived from the accumulation of particular aroma compounds. A wine's aroma will change during the first ten to thirty minutes after the bottle is opened. Decanting accelerates the breathing process, which increases the wine's aromas from natural fruit and oak by allowing a few volatile substances to evaporate. Decanting also softens the taste of tannins that cause harshness and astringency in young wines. In older red wines, the tannin reactions have proceeded long enough to reduce astringency. As a result, the taste is not as harsh when the wine is drunk straight out of the bottle. In comparison to reds, white wines have little tannin and are not aged in bottles for very long before serving. Thus, they have very little opportunity to develop bottle aromas that need evaporation. Instead, their natural fruit aromas more specifically define their taste. There are however, a number of white wines that can benefit from decanting, or specifically aeration.
In the past, it was quite common for wines poured from both barrel and bottle to contain a considerable amount of solid matter (i.e. sediments). However, most wines on the shelves today have gone through a filtering process and are substantially clear. Certain high end wines, particularly after long term storage, can still have substantial sediments. Decanting a young wine (particularly one with no sediment) involves pouring the wine into another decanter and letting it sit for twenty minutes or so before you serve it and you will likely notice a dramatic increase in subtlety and complexity. If you have the luxury of time, one can continue tasting the wine over a period of hours. Many wines keep evolving and improving over time. Some experts believe that decanting all types of wines from Bordeaux to Burgundy and even whites can beneficially affect the wine.
Of course the problem with decanting is that it takes a substantially long period of time for the oxygen to work its miraculous effects on the taste of the wine. If one knows, for example, a day in advance that they are going to be having a meal with a particular type of wine, the wine may be uncorked and decanted as much as a day before. Some experts have recommended the following process for properly drinking a bottle of red wine: First, chill the red wine in a refrigerator for at least two hours. Second, uncork the bottle of wine and decant it. Allow it to come back to room temperature over a period of hours. Third, taste and then drink the wine. The process of warming back up tends to pull more oxygen in from the surrounding air thereby refining the wine. The inventors have actually done this process and it works amazingly well. The downside is that is very time consuming.
However, all of this historical decanting and ritual that one goes through with wine (particularly red wine) ignores the simple physics. It is really only the act of pouring the wine from one bottle to a different container that has any real meaningful effect as this is when surface tension is broken up and oxygen from the surrounding air actually has a chance to interact with wine molecules. Once the wine is decanted and sitting again in a calm state, there is a surface tension across the surface of the fluid thereby making gas exchange a very slow and long process.
Accordingly, there is a need to rapidly aerate wine and perfect an oxygen exchange to remove the astringent taste and reduce the tannin levels. U.S. Pat. No. 4,785,724 to Vassallo describes an apparatus for aerating bottled wine. Referring to FIG. 1 of Vassallo, one can see a wine bottle 1 which is full of wine and an aeration tube 20, 21 disposed into the bottle of wine terminating at a distal end 22 in a structure with fine holes to break up the air flow into final bubbles. The problem with the Vassallo invention is that the air flow rate through the tube 20, 21 has to be extremely low so that the wine does not form bubbles and froth out the top and create a mess all over the base unit 2. The inventors have experimented with such techniques and have found that this is no more efficient than decanting. In other words, it can take up to 20 minutes by very slowly putting bubbles into the wine and creating a slight surface agitation such that the wine will not froth out of the bottle.
Reference is also made to U.S. Pat. No. 5,154,112 to Wettern. In the Wettern invention, there is a manual pump disposed over the top of the wine bottle which one manually compresses. Referring to FIGS. 1 and 2 of the '112 patent, one can see the end of the pump 8 and a seating collar 13 where it sits on the neck of the wine bottle. Referring to FIG. 2, one can see the manual pump in cross-section and one can see the area 13 and note that there is not a liquid tight seal formed. This means that as air is injected down into the wine bottle, as shown in FIG. 1, it would have to be an extremely low flow rate. If a bubble froth was formed, that would mean that liquid and bubbles would escape between the neck of the wine bottle and the collar 13 which only loosely rests on the end of the wine bottle. This is a major deficiency of the invention as previously described in the Vassallo '724 patent. In other words, the Wettern invention would only work at extremely low flow rates.
Another wine bottle aerator is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,595,104 to Delaplaine. FIG. 1 of Delaplaine shows an air pump housing 12, a sealing apparatus 14, an extension tube 16 and an end with aeration holes 18. There is an air escape hole 24, as shown. The '104 patent suffers from all of the same deficiencies as described in the Vassallo and Wettern patents. The deficiency is the air flow out of the distal tip 18 would have to be extremely low such that a bubble and froth wasn't created, which would cause wine to overflow the outside of the wine bottle and pour, for example, down onto a countertop.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,561,970 to Mills, et al. describes another type of low volume aeration system. The Mills, et al. aeration system does not have an expansion chamber and is therefore, by definition a low volume system. This is in marked contrast to the present invention, which is a high volume aeration system able to achieve complete aeration and reduction of tannins in the wine in less than 10 seconds or some specific time period much shorter than the prior art. All of the aforementioned prior art requires at least several minutes of aeration at a very slow rate. The reason for this is simple physics. If one drives a very high volume of gas, such as air or oxygen into the bottle of a bottle of wine, a great deal of bubble formation and froth will immediately occur. Unless there is an expansion chamber, this froth will spill over the top of the wine bottle and create a mess.
Accordingly, there is a need for a device that can aerate wine at an accelerated rate. The present invention fulfills these needs and provides other related advantages.